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The Daily Signal
With Appeal to
Liberty, Ted Cruz Jumps Into 2016 Race for President
Ken McIntyre
March 23, 2015
Ted Cruz asked his audience of thousands to let their imaginations run
wild.
And then the junior senator from Texas explicitly asked them to imagine
him as the nation’s next president.
“I believe in you,” Cruz said. “I believe in the power of millions of
courageous conservatives rising up to reignite the promise of America,
and that is why today I am announcing that I’m running for president of
the United States.”
Speaking this morning at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., and
asking his listeners to “stand together for liberty,” Cruz became the
first major Republican candidate to announce a bid for the nomination
and his website went into campaign mode. (At this juncture, no Democrat
has announced, though Hillary Rodham Clinton is expected to do so next
month.)
Don’t have time to read the Washington Post or New York Times? Then get
The Morning Bell, an early morning edition of the day’s most important
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team committed to following the truth no matter where it leads.
Cruz, a favorite of tea party conservatives elected to the Senate in
2012, used the word “imagine” 38 times and was interrupted by applause
more than 50 times during his 35-minute announcement speech, according
to a transcript of his remarks.
Cruz, 44, opened by devoting nearly a third of the speech to a
detail-laden retelling of his family story, a narrative that moved from
darkness into light because, he said, God was there and so was the
American Dream. (In short: Alcohol nearly destroys his Cuban father’s
triumphant new life in America until, after leaving his wife and young
Ted, the senior Cruz finds Jesus and turns his life around.)
“These are all of our stories. These are who we are as Americans,” Cruz
said. “And yet, for so many Americans, the promise of America seems
more and more distant.”
Most of the policy issues that the Texas Republican touched
on—repealing “every word” of Obamacare, stopping “executive amnesty”
for illegal immigrants, enacting a flat tax, abolishing the IRS,
protecting religious liberty, human life and “the sacrament of
marriage”—make up the red meat of a stump speech he has been honing for
months.
It was his windup that pulled it all together:
It is a time for truth. It is a time for liberty. It
is a time to reclaim the Constitution of the United States.…
This is our fight. The answer will not come from
Washington. It will come only from the men and women across this
country, … from people of faith, from lovers of liberty, from people
who respect the Constitution.
It will only come as it has come at every other time
of challenge in this country, when the American people stand together
and say we will get back to the principles that have made this country
great. We will get back and restore that shining city on a hill that is
the United States of America.
National Journal reported that Cruz appeared as part of a weekly
convocation for which attendance is mandatory for some 10,000 students.
Silently protesting fans of Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., set to announce his
own candidacy April 7, sat together in their “I Stand With Rand”
T-shirts as Cruz spoke.
In his characteristic courtroom style, the Harvard-educated lawyer and
former solicitor general of Texas was free of a podium and at ease
pacing the lip of the stage in a dark suit and striped tie.
What was most apparent in this speech was how often Cruz name-checked
God and referred to biblical faith.
Cruz, a Southern Baptist, salted his remarks with faith-friendly
phrases such as “God transformed his [father’s] heart,” “the
transforming love of Jesus Christ,” rights that “come from God
Almighty,” “the grace of God,” “God’s blessing,” and “God isn’t done
with America.” At one point, he said:
Today, roughly half of born-again Christians aren’t
voting. They’re staying home. Imagine instead millions of people of
faith all across America coming out to the polls and voting our values.
The biggest applause line came when he asked the audience to imagine
replacing “a president who boycotts [Israeli] Prime Minister
Netanyahu” with “a president who stands unapologetically with the
nation of Israel.”
Wrapping up, Cruz drew laughter from the mostly Christian audience when
he asked listeners to “break a rule” by taking out their cell phones
and texting his campaign either the word “Constitution” or the word
“imagine”—a move that could reap thousands of new contacts.
Cruz’s wife Heidi and their two young daughters joined the newly minted
presidential candidate on stage before he slowly made his way off,
signing autographs along the way.
See photos and a video at The Daily Signal
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